A recent performance of George Bernard Shaw's play "Saint Joan",
this time in
Minneapolis, MN, has been followed by the inevitable internet
reviews which have unfortunately made the mistake of
interpreting this fictional
play - which claims that Joan was a radical convicted on accurate charges of
heresy by an unbiased French court - as if it were an authentic representation
of history. As so many of my fellow historians have pointed out
over the years, Shaw's version distorted the issue beyond recognition:
as even English government records and a number
of the tribunal members themselves admitted, Joan was convicted by
an English-run court on a set of deliberately false charges by
pro-English clergy,n1 a number of whom
nevertheless developed scruples about the process and had to be
coerced into agreeing to a guilty verdict.

Joan's actual views
on orthodoxy can be seen in a letter
she dictated on 23 March 1430,
in which she threatened to lead a crusading army against a heretical
group called the Hussites unless they returned to orthodox Catholicism.
This echoes the view in numerous accounts, from chronicles to
private letters to the later testimony of 115 witnesses at the
posthumous appeal (the "Rehabilitation" or "Nullification" Trial) when a
more balanced tribunal of the Inquisition overturned the verdict
(in 1456) after the
English were finally driven out of Rouen.

Shaw's notion that she was convicted based on "valid" concerns about heresy
stemmed from a profound ignorance about the
nature of the opposition to Joan, the conduct of the trial,
the credibility (or lack thereof) of the transcript, and
the significance of Joan's statements. It is not
coincidence that calls for her trial emanated from the clergy at the
University of Paris, which
had long served as a mouthpiece for the English occupation government
ever since Paris came under their control in 1419; nor is it
coincidence that her judge was
Bishop Pierre Cauchon, who had long been a "collaborator" and a paid
member of the occupation
council which governed English-controlled Normandy, as well as having
been a well-documented "renegade" (as some historians have rightly put it)
of very dubious orthodoxy himself.
We know that most of the other clergy throughout Europe either
supported her or took a neutral stance, as there are supportive
treatises written during her campaigns by the Archbishop of Embrun,
the famous theologian Jean Gerson, and other prominent clergy; we
additionally know from foreign writers that throughout Europe she was already
widely considered,
as the Venetian Pancrazio Giustiniani said c. May 20th
1429, "another
Saint Catherine come down to earth." There was little opposition
to her aside from pro-English clergy and their cronies, such as Johannes Nider.

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Nor did she refuse to submit herself to the Church: eyewitnesses
said that the ambiguous nature of the transcript's version of her
responses on that subject
was a product of the rather selective recording of her
words as well as her accusers' attempts to confuse the issue by
hypocritically demanding that she submit to themselves while denying her
repeated appeals to the Pope. She had
actually said at many points that she
would submit to both the Pope and Council of Basel, but not to the
members of the enemy faction who were running the trial - a position
which was perfectly within
her rights under the rules of Inquisitorial courts, since such
tribunals were required to contain neutral
representatives of the clergy and the accused was
allowed to appeal directly to the Papacy. Much of the debate between
Joan and her accusers over "submission to the Church" revolved around the paradoxical
situation whereby she
was being asked to submit to the "Ecclesia Militans" while being denied the right to be tried
by valid representatives of the entire Ecclesia Militans - the "Church" was being invoked in
what was little more than a secular trial. The eyewitnesses said that she saw through this
charade and therefore: 1) rightly considered their use of the term "Church" to refer only to the tribunal
itself, and 2) called their bluff by demanding to be given a
valid ecclesiastic trial. Unfortunately, her judges -
insulated by English armies and conducting the trial behind closed doors - were able
to simply gloss over her request while
dishonestly claiming that her refusal to submit to themselves
would constitute "heresy".

Similarly, the direct cause cited as an excuse for her conviction - her "resumption
of male clothing" - was based on a far worse act of fraud perpetrated
by her judges. Many eyewitnesses said that she had been wearing this clothing
principally because, having "laces and points" by which the pants and tunic could be
securely tied together, it could serve as a defense against the attempted
rape she had endured at the hands of her guards, a necessity-based
circumstance which was specifically allowed as a special exemption
by the medieval Church, as is stated in the "Summa Theologica",
the "Scivias", and other medieval theological documents. Her
judges not only refused to acknowledge this, but came up with a
particularly reprehensible ploy to utilize the situation: according to eyewitnesses,
after she had finally
been bullied into giving up this clothing the incidences of attempted rape
were increased, followed by the removal of the female clothes she had been
given to wear, thereby leaving her nothing but the forbidden male clothing.
According to the bailiff at the trial, Jean Massieu,
she finally put the offending garments back on after arguing with the
guards "until noon", and was then promptly declared "relapsed" and
sentenced to die based solely on that.

There were numerous other illegal acts and examples of fraud, such as the
unnotarized final "confession" in a section of the transcript dated
a full eight days after her death, which the notaries later confirmed had never
been signed because they thought the alleged "confession" was, in
essence, a fictional attempt to provide bogus proof in the absence
of any compelling evidence against her.
In short, her judges were running a flagrantly unlawful trial
for the purposes of exacting revenge on behalf of their secular faction; and
it was because of all these issues
that the Inquisitor-General who presided over the postwar appeal described
Joan as a martyr for the faith while accusing Cauchon and the other
tribunal members of
having acted in a spirit of, quote, "manifest malice against the
Roman Catholic Church, and indeed heresy" ("malicia manifesta contra
Ecclesiam Romanam, aut etiam ab heresi") in his final summary of the
evidence, the "Recollectio" (June 1456). She was thus already
officially considered a martyr shortly after the war.

Beyond Pop 'History'

It is often popularly believed that she was convicted for having
relied on her visions and her own "conscience", and that
she was allegedly
rejected by the entire Church until the later canonization in 1920.
Both are falsifications of history: it should be well-known that
since Joan had already
been accepted as a valid visionary by the clergy at Poitiers in March
of 1429 (before being granted an army), it was not
an act of heresy for her to insist on the validity of such approved
visions - especially during an era
in which so many other visionaries
had done the same. Only a few decades earlier, St. Catherine of Siena had
relied on her visions to make pronouncements on the Papacy itself,
and was accepted, and actually deferred to,
by many of the clergy. Nor is an individual's "conscience" ever an issue
in such cases, since: 1) visionaries, by definition, are relaying
direct and overt messages from God rather than claiming that their
own personal feelings, inclinations, or intuition would
represent a vague "inner voice" from God - two entirely different things;
2) such visionaries had to demonstrate both
doctrinal orthodoxy as well as miraculous signs in order to prove
that they were in fact in direct communication with God. Joan proved
herself in this manner to the clergy of her faction before being
accepted: it's therefore not accurate to say
she was declaring that her own unsubstantiated personal views should be
accepted without proof of Divine guidance.

Similarly, the idea that Joan was allegedly
rejected or ignored by the Church up until her
later canonization - which is often cited as "proof" that her judges
were allegedly in step with the Church as a whole - is also a misconception.
During her trial itself, she retained such support among
much of the clergy that there are records of public Masses being
held on her behalf as far away as the Alps. In the few years immediately
following her death, some (such
as Martin le Franc in 1440) compared
her execution to that of Christ, and a festival and religious play
in her honor was held at Orleans beginning in 1435, shortly after her
death. This event was declared a pilgrimage
site meriting an indulgence by the Church already in 1452. In the 16th century she was
utilized as a symbol by the Catholic League during the wars against
Protestantism, and was the subject of much popular devotion throughout
the period prior to her official canonization. The long delay
leading up to the latter event is not terribly unusual: e.g., it took
707 years to canonize St. Agnes of Prague, 400 years for St.
Thomas More, 717 for St. Hermann Joseph, etc. St. Hildegard still has not been officially canonized
(only beatified) after 824 years despite being considered a de-facto
saint by the Church.
The process often takes a considerable time and the delay is
seemingly random.

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Shaw's Rehabilitation of Cauchon

It was Joan's judge, Bishop Pierre Cauchon, whose orthodoxy
was suspect: historians
have long described him as a "revolutionary
prelate" and a "renegade". We know that he himself committed heresy
by engaging in bribery (as revealed in a letter of authorization dated 26 July
1415) in order to corrupt deliberations at the Council of Constance
regarding an
assassination which his (then) secular master, Duke Jean-sans-Peur of
Burgundy, had ordered.n2 Two years
earlier he had helped promote the Cabochien Revolt in Paris, again as
part of a Burgundian plot, for which he was exiled as a criminal
after the revolt
was put down. Following the alliance between
the Duke of Burgundy and England, he adopted the staunch pro-English
allegiancen3 which would lead him to convict Joan on their behalf.
He was one of the most corrupt clergymen of his era -
as much a politician as a cleric -
and generations of historians have correctly noted that
it was this "Renegade Bishop", not his innocent victim,
who was the genuine heretic under the rules of that era. But
unfortunately George Bernard Shaw, it must be said, decided to whitewash this fellow's record
while shamefully perpetuating the slander he had
invented against the woman he cruelly put to death.

Margin Note 2: Cauchon was given this order in a letter written by Duke Jean-sans-Peur of Burgundy. Eight large barrels of fine wine - the Duke's normal choice for oiling the machinery of state - was dispatched to Cauchon to liberally dole out in order to "expedite Our affairs there."

Margin Note 3: Cauchon was paid 1,000 pounds per year for his service to the English occupation government, enjoying a seat on the Duke of Bedford's council which governed occupied Normandy as well as serving in such positions as Chancellor to the Queen of England. He was a prominent figure whom Joan well knew to be a member of the enemy faction.

Shaw's Version of Joan's Role

As a final issue, Shaw took considerable liberties with what he
saw as Joan's "nationalism" and "feminism" - two anachronisms which
are based on a number of
unhistorical assumptions about the motives and purpose of her role and her
alleged "uniqueness" as a woman in such a role. Concerning "nationalism":
this idea is particularly out of place during an era when the French
were divided into feudal "Armagnac" and "Burgundian" factions. Joan
said she supported the Armagnacs and Charles VII only because God had
ordered her to do so, not due to any motive equating to "nationalist"
sentiment, and she always used the term "France" itself in
its original feudal sense. Concerning "feminism": firstly, the reason she was placed at the head of an
army was simply the same reason other religious figures were sometimes
given such positions during the Middle Ages; secondly, she was hardly
the "only woman", as is often claimed, to be granted a similar role during that era, given that there
were many aristocratic ladies - e.g., Countess Jehanne de Montfort,
Duchess Marie de Bourbon, Lady Jehanne de Belleville, Countess
Jehanne de Penthievre, Countess Agnes of March, etc - who had
been given various forms of military command in the absence of their
husbands or sons - a standard trait of the feudal system. Joan was
unique in many respects, but not because she was a woman who was given
titular command of an army in that era. Finally and most importantly:
we have quotes from Joan, relayed by eyewitnesses, stating
that (if it hadn't been for her visions) "I would prefer to spin wool
beside my poor mother, because this [i.e. leading an army] is not
of my social station"
and similar comments which certainly do not sound
much like feminism. Her stated goal was,
after all, not to "overthrow the patriarchy" nor to promote the
cause of nationalism, but rather to place
Charles VII on his throne simply because God supported him as
the valid heir rather than Henry VI.
Shaw seems to have tried to call into question her close ties to her king,
and thereby justify his own version, by 1) making
Joan refer to him with flippant remarks that she never would have made:
in all her recorded statements, she referred to him respectfully as
"le gentil roi Charles" ("the noble King Charles") or similar titles.
2) Shaw puts forth the allegation
that Charles betrayed her - an allegation which has been repeated
by many pop authors but is not justified by
any known documentary evidence, and in fact is soundly contradicted by
what evidence we do have on that subject. Even enemy (Anglo-Burgundian)
sources state that after her capture, Charles' faction was "doing everything in their
power" to get her back "by extraordinary means, and worse, by money
or ransom" (as found in a letter from the University
of Paris to Joan's captor, John of Luxembourg, on 14 July 1430), and this is also
borne out by neutral sources such as the Morosini correspondence, in
which it is stated flatly that Charles had tried to force the
Burgundians to ransom her back to her own side, and threatened
to treat Burgundian prisoners according to whatever procedure was
adopted in Joan's case. Her transfer to the English in exchange
for the usual monetary compensation was not a "prisoner auction" in which
Charles could have "outbid" the English, as is sometimes erroneously assumed, but
was merely the standard practice whenever
prisoners were transferred among lords who belonged to the same
faction - e.g., the same was done when English lords transferred
their Agincourt prisoners to Henry V in exchange for money to compensate
them for the ransom they could otherwise have gained. As with some
of these prisoners, Charles VII was never given the option to ransom Joan.
Additionally, Shaw's version of Charles as a frivolous buffoon,
for whom Joan's efforts and affections were allegedly misplaced, misguided, or
disingenuous, is based on a caricature only loosely drawn from
history: while Charles certainly had his faults, the main
impression of him that emerges from the documents is that of a sorrowful man who,
in one moment of despair on November 1, 1428, had allegedly prayed
God to punish only himself rather than allowing his people to suffer
if his claim to the throne was truly invalid (as the English claimed)
and his pursuit of the crown therefore sinful. He could be merciful:
there is a
curious pattern in the archives of the Royal Court of Appeals indicating
that Charles obeyed Joan's request to forgive anyone who asked
pardon, as virtually every condemned criminal who asked for clemency
received it - a pattern which has puzzled some historians who were
unaware of Joan's request of Charles. He therefore doesn't appear to have
betrayed her either by selling her out to her enemies nor
by betraying most of the principles which she had asked him to govern
by, with the notable exception of his unfortunate later adoption of a
mistress, Agnes Sorel, for which Joan would have been outraged.
In short: there appears to have been mutual loyalty and respect
between Joan and her King, and nowhere
in any of her many recorded statements do we find anything
equating to either nationalism, feminism or any other modern philosophy of either
the Left or the Right: she always said that she did what she did
solely in obedience to God.

On an issue indirectly related to the feminism topic: some reviewers have commended the recent production of Shaw's
play for placing the 5'10" Kate Eifrig in the lead character, based on the
stereotype that Joan would have had to have been physically large to perform
her role, in
contrast to the traditional "petite" portrayals; but we have a good idea of
her actual size thanks to a letter (dated 30 September 1429) concerning two items of
clothing bought for her by the council at Orleans and then ratified
by the city's Duke. Since this letter gives the amount as well as
type of cloth purchased for each item, we can estimate Joan's
maximum possible height: even if the entire roll of cloth had been used,
she would have been no more than about 5'2". Since cloth was always
purchased at the nearest number of whole units above what was actually needed,
this maximum estimate would almost certainly be above her actual
height, consistent with eyewitness accounts stating that she was "short" -
since the average woman of that era was at or under 5 feet, "short"
in this context would have to mean something decidedly less than 5'2".
Since her stated role was to carry her banner - sources on both
sides quote her as saying that she had never killed anyone, and preferred
to carry her banner into battle [rather than a weapon] - a small
size would not preclude such a role. Similarly, plate armor for someone of this
size would, it has been estimated, perhaps weigh only 30
pounds (in contrast to the astronomical guesses put forth by some
modern authors). She would have needed stamina and, above all else,
the ability to endure the constant pain from the plates
bruising her body, but great size and physical strength would not be
required.

Unfortunately, Shaw was working from a very incomplete knowledge
of the subject and decided to add a great deal of his own
fiction. The result not only falsifies history but also frequently repeats
the slanderous version invented by Joan's accusers,
portraying these men as "sincere" pillars of orthodoxy which we know
they most emphatically were not, while casting Joan as a "rebel"
who was guilty as charged,
which the preponderance of the historical evidence proves to be
outrageously false. Readers are encouraged to view the
evidence presented elsewhere on this site: the surviving letters which she
dictated to scribes, the testimony of those who knew her, and
other such information which contradicts the propaganda of her
enemies. The woman who emerges from the more balanced documents
is a complex person with a sense of humor as well as deep piety, courage, and
compassion even for the English soldiers who were killed by her troops.
Each person should be able to find something in her to love, regardless
of whether she fits the modern stereotypes they may be accustomed to.